This paper, proceeding from the project construction process, the management mode and the implementation way, makes an in-depth study of the environmental characteristics and the managerial elements of petrochemical engineering construction project, revealing the inherent laws, establishing a theoretical model, and proposing a theory of the mechanisms of construction project management; and presents profound revelations found for construction project management in petrochemical engineering in seven aspects, which can play a guiding role in improving the managerial performance of petrochemical construction project. The theory established proposes that: The construction project management in petrochemical engineering is a complex systematic process, formed of 5 phases and 55 sub-processes of management, and exposed to many factors of influence; the environmental characteristics and managerial elements exercise positive impacts on managerial performance, but different factors have different impacts and act in different ways on managerial performance; the managerial elements of petrochemical engineering construction project are tiered, transferable, systematic and quantifiable, and the role of managerial elements in the managerial performance can be systematically integrated, quantitatively explained and transferred in a multi-level way.
Philosophy of engineering lays the philosophical foundation of recognition, understanding and management of engineering. Being the kernel of philosophy of engineering, engineering ontology becomes the master key to understanding of engineering. The paper proposes and interprets the principal theses of engineering ontology, which differs from understanding of engineering in separate elements. Engineering ontology believes that engineering is the direct, realistic productivity that runs dynamically and feasibly and creates values. Engineering involves the relationship between human beings and the nature as well as the relationship between human beings and the society, and it has been a basic motive force and a basic way of promoting the social development, so that engineering gains the ontological status and fundamental value in social existence and social development. From the historical point of view, the engineering appears before the emergence of technology and science. Engineering has its own basis for existence, its own structure and its own laws for movement and evolution. Engineering should not be simply regarded as the ramification and derivative from science or technology. Engineering ontology is the theoretical basis of the triism of “science, technology, and engineering”. To understand and handle the mutual relationship among engineering, technology and science, by the evaluation criteria of engineering as the direct productivity, the process and effect of engineering-centered selection, integration and construction must be emphasized and the characteristic and mechanism of selection, integration and construction must be paid high attention. Under no circumstance may the engineering be deemed as an unchanged matter, which is constantly evolving and developing, so the studies on engineering ontology are closely and internally related with the theory of engineering evolution.
Energy is an important basis for economic and social development, and is a critical economic sector. Due to the complexity of the energy system, the interactive relationship with economic and social development, and the enormous investment involved, the optimization of the energy system is of great significance. We should make efforts to develop targets and specific approaches for the rational and optimal development of an energy system in order to avoid big losses due to systematic mistakes.
In the view of engineering philosophy, the mining engineering is a dynamic operating process of ferrous material flow, in which the ferrous material flow is processed orderly through a series of continual coordinated procedures. It is also a process of discarding the dross, selecting the essential, and extracting the original metal. The object of management is to fulfill the multi-objective optimization. The proportion of lean ores in iron ore resources is 82% in the world and even 97% in China but their utilization is very low. Aiming at the bottleneck and weakness of China’s resource development, this paper analyzes and plans the mining engineering system as a whole based on the ideas and methods of system theory and engineering philosophical thinking. And the paper proposes the “grade decision-based multi-system integration” engineering management mode, which considers the relationship between engineering and environment and complies with the natural law. In the mode, the mining engineering, including geologic mining, ore blending, concentration and pelleting, can be viewed as a whole and the geological grade, mined ore grade, feed grade, concentrate grade and feed grade of blast furnace can be considered comprehensively. The mode reflected the overall structural optimization idea, realized the analysis, coordination and optimization among the multiple functions and processes, and thus drove the overall efficient and profit optimization throughout the processing flow. The establishment and the application of the “grade decision-based multi-system integration” mode have solved the lean iron ores exploitation problem and supported the “self-sufficiency” resource strategy.
This paper proposes an economic growth model based on the Six Basic Factors of Production and Xu Growth Rate Equation for the first time, which fills-in the deficits of the New Classical Economic Growth Model based on the Solow Model. The empirical analysis indicates that over the past three decades, the consumption of six basic factors of production had complicated relations with economic growth. In some years, the consumption rate of the basic factors of production was meager, but the economy witnessed relatively rocketing growth rate; in some years, the factors of production consumption rate was very high, but the economy growth rate slowed down. In general, economy grows at the expenses of huge consumption of four factors. There is an obvious characteristic of huge input and low efficiency. The average contribution rate of technological advance peaks in the middle, while it drops down at two ends. Noticeably, since 2004, the technology contribution rate generally shows a downward trend, reasons of which should be explored systematically in aspects like economic policy and industry structure with a view to boost further transformation of the macro-economy scientific growth model.
As a consequence of an increasing demand in sustainable development for business organizations, the evaluation of corporate sustainability has become a topic intensively focused by academic researchers and business practitioners. Several techniques in the context of multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) have been suggested to facilitate the evaluation and the analysis of sustainability performance. However, due to the complexity of evaluation, such as a compilation of quantitative and qualitative measures, interrelationships among various sustainability criteria, the assessor’s hesitation in scoring, or incomplete information, simple techniques may not be able to generate reliable results which can reflect the overall sustainability performance of a company. This paper proposes a series of mathematical formulations based upon the evidential reasoning (ER) approach which can be used to aggregate results from qualitative judgments with quantitative measurements under various types of complex and uncertain situations. The evaluation of corporate sustainability through the ER model is demonstrated using actual data generated from three sugar manufacturing companies in Thailand. The proposed model facilitates managers in analysing the performance and identifying improvement plans and goals. It also simplifies decision making related to sustainable development initiatives. The model can be generalized to a wider area of performance assessment, as well as to any cases of multiple criteria analysis.
As the grand urbanization rapidly progresses in China, Chinese government launches a magnificent urban rail transit development plan as the key part of the preferential public transportation strategy. It is very necessary to establish a viable public private partnership model for urban rail construction. The philosophy of transit-oriented-development （TOD） is discussed in this study by reviewing Hong Kong Railway+ Property development model which is proved very successful in mass transit rail development in Hong Kong. This paper examines current practice of urban transit as of conventional public transport infrastructure in China and looks into ways of getting over the bureaucratic and technologic hurdles in order to generating synergy value and opportunity of rail oriented urban development. Taking the TOD and public-private-partnership (PPP) study of Shenzhen metro line 6 as an example, the sustainable urban rail development model is introduced and elaborated. It concludes that the sustainable urban rail transit shall be able to energize the great potential of rail and urban development at macro, meso and micro levels, through effective integration of administration and technology resources, and generation of win-win scenarios among government, metro company, people and stakeholders.
Nowadays, China is in the period of industrialization, modernization and urbanization. The investment to the infrastructure is increasing which requires the support from construction innovation. Construction innovation is project-based cooperative innovation. The innovation based cooperation not only focuses inside the boundary of project, but also emphasizes the long-term strategic cooperation among the participants of innovation network. Therefore, it is significant to explore the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) of construction innovation based on the viewpoint of strategic cooperation. This paper first presents the definition and characteristics of construction innovation. By tracking the international frontiers, the authors studied a great number of literatures on the influence elements of construction innovation. Combining the effort of literature review and expert interview, this present paper identified 20 CSFs for construction innovation, which is verified and perfected by a case study in the end. The findings of this research will be of great importance for guiding the practice of construction innovation in China.
This paper outlines the creation of a simulation model used to extrapolate duration and resource requirements needed for the construction of bridges based on a sampling of data obtained during a field research conducted on the construction process of a single bridge. A sampling of statistical data was taken during a field investigation to measure schedule and resource requirements (labor, raw materials and machinery) at various stages of a bridge construction project. This data was used to identify the probability distribution and the associated parameters for the project examined, and a simulation model was built to extrapolate the necessary schedule and resource requirements needed for various stages of similar bridge projects based on Three-Point Estimation Method of Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and Monte Carlo Method. This simulation model’s resultant data for every process in an applicable construction project can be aggregated to form overall project duration and resource requirement statistical distribution using the Critical Path Method (CPM). The whole construction process will be visualized by a 4-dimensional (4D) model of the project which is created by appending time and resource requirements and to the 3-dimensional (3D) model that is built using the Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Alternativa 3D technology. Based on the simulation results of every procedure’s duration and resource requirements, the Network Program Diagram and Gantt Chart can be drawn with Flex and ActionScript language. Furthermore, with the Network Program Diagram at the core, the 4D model can incorporate simulation’s resultant data with respect to total time and cost of the project to show the condition of resource requirements and the project’s progressing at any time.
A large number of engineering management professionals are required to promote engineering management efficiency, but the existing engineering management training system has some gaps with economical and social development in China. Development of engineering management discipline has very important strategic significance in China. This paper explores the disciplinary characteristics of engineering management, and analyzes the developmental issues about education of engineering management discipline. Meanwhile, the paper also proposes that the construction for development strategy of China’s engineering management discipline should be accelerated in the following aspects: Theoretical system of engineering management must be built and methodology of engineering management needs to be explored and perfected; advantages of various universities should be fully expressed, to show their own characteristics with accurate and reasonable positioning; knowledge system of engineering management discipline must be organized and integrated; practical ability of engineering management professionals needs to be promoted; education level of engineering management discipline should be perfected and training objectives at various levels must be clarified; teaching methods and means have to be reformed.